


sleep to the freezing

by lavitanuova



Series: (slaps tsc) this bad boy can fit so much angst in it [2]
Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:34:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27642818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavitanuova/pseuds/lavitanuova
Summary: But you know different, don’t you? You know real love’s supposed to hurt.==the horrible terrible no good love story of james and grace. canon divergent from chapter ten of chain of gold onwards.
Relationships: Grace Blackthorn/James Herondale
Series: (slaps tsc) this bad boy can fit so much angst in it [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2068389
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	sleep to the freezing

**Author's Note:**

> get in losers we're projecting our issues onto random ya lit characters  
> tw suicide ment., generally yikes relationship

When she asks you to leave, you find it isn't really much of a choice at all. 

The funny thing about love stories is that they’re only true for a certain type of people. Actresses and actors, faces caked with paint, spouting poetic words to each other that they’d memorised off a script. Two-dimensional characters, nothing but ink on a page, stilted and syrupy-sweet in their platitudes. But you know different, don’t you? You know real love’s supposed to hurt. 

* * *

_ When they’re stripping him of his marks, you stare out across the crowd of watching people and find his sister there. Her father has an arm across her waist so she doesn’t fall to the floor, and she’s turned her head away, a hand pressed over her eyes so she doesn’t have to see her brother cry. She squeezes a red-headed girl’s hand like it would kill them both if they let go. _

_ Here’s the worst thing: in her eyes you see yourself. _

* * *

You don’t read much anymore. You don’t do much anymore, except wake up, go to work in a mundane shop, and return home, a picture of the perfect husband. It’s hard to believe you’re an adult- you look out the tram window at the city passing you by and you can’t tell when you grew up, or if you even grew up at all. A part of you still feels like a child, lost and alone in this strange city. 

When the two of you are at home you dance about each other. In the rarest chance your hands touch it sends a shock up your spine, a painful reminder that you’re a real person, that you still exist here in the earthly plane. You’ve spent whole days drifting about your life, scars aching, smiling when you're asked to smile and kissing Grace on the cheek when you come home. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be, something in your head screams, but you ignore it. There's a hint of familiarity to the voice.

(Perhaps it might be your own.) 

* * *

_ Girls like you are meant to live in the dark. They’re meant to wander the cobwebbed hallways of their childhood home, with their books balanced on their heads, and straighten the clocks that have been perpetually frozen. You're on your own now, but the inescapable truth is that you have always been Mother’s daughter, through and through, and you know no matter how far you go you’ll never be free of her. In your flat-  _ your flat!  _ \- you look in the mirror while you clean off your makeup and the girl who stares back isn't you. You tell yourself your name is Grace but you never do believe it, because the girl everyone calls Grace is nothing more than a mask Mother has made you wear for seventeen years, and once you’ve finally peeled it off, you find that the face beneath is one you don’t recognise. _

* * *

You tried to drown yourself when you were sixteen. No, that's not quite right. You simply stopped fighting against the tide, let the clear water of the Serpentine rush over your body and into your lungs. Once you were there, you felt as if you'd never leave- that the chill in your lungs was as much a part of you as your head or heart. The cold seemed to be lodged in your bones, the way you felt those long years ago when you were sick in bed, lying next to someone reading from a book. (The strangest thing: though her voice cuts clearly through the fog of time, light and lilting, you can no longer remember the shade of her hair, the book she was reading, or even who she was to you.)

There are brief flashes of light in your past, muddled and blurry, starring dogs and taverns and books and friends, but when you recall them it seems to be through a thick layer of glass, like a photograph faded by light. The only one who can make you feel human now is her. 

* * *

_ One day you find yourself punching your mirror till your perfect hands are slick with blood. Everything’s too bright and too loud and you miss your brother but he hasn’t forgiven you ever since James left with you and you’re lonely, you’re so lonely, and there’s a horrible dark thing inside of you that your mother planted and you nurtured until there’s nothing left of you but rot and hollowness. You're not real, you're not, the girl named Grace Cartwright died a long time ago and in her place stands a shadow with lipstick painted on, and oh, wouldn't she scream if she could see what you've become?  _

_ The mirror fractures underneath your touch, splintering into a thousand pieces. There's a chance Jesse might be behind you. His hands are on your shoulder, and he's whispering your name, but when you whirl he isn't there and the room is empty of anyone but you. The light from the electric lamp above is harsh and artificial. Turning back, you realise it makes your face look hollow, and that just won't do. I need to buy more rouge, you think, and the sheer mundanity of it sends a sharp despair through you. Will this always be your life? A play-act, a masquerade, every movement directed by the ghost of your mother?  _

_ There is blood on the floor. There is glass on the floor. You find you do not care.  _

_ When your husband comes running you make a flimsy excuse. He believes you- you've made sure of that. I love you, he says, and you feel the slightest twinge of guilt in your chest, and you want to shake him and scream and pry the glittering bracelet off of his wrist. Instead, you repeat the words he said to you, and you go to the kitchen to take your broom and dustpan. _

_ When you glance behind you, he kneels on the parlor floor, picking up the shards. His face is as unreadable as it's always been, his golden eyes empty. You wonder if there's anything left to him but love for you. You wonder if there's anything left of you for him to love. _

* * *

In the fragments of the mirror, the boy who stares back isn't you. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from cherry wine by hozier


End file.
